Top 100 Celebrated Travel Books of all Time

http://www.worldhum.com/features/lists/the-100-most-celebrated-travel-books-list-20100427/

Lists: The definitive list of travel books that travel writers, editors, bloggers and readers love best.

http://www.worldhum.com/features/lists/the-100-most-celebrated-travel-books-list-20100427/ has a wonderful list of the best 100 travel books of all time. Something has happened to my old, familiar way to make hot links, but each book on the list appears to have it's own individual link. If you would like to click around at some books, you'll need to do a copy and paste with all the garbage that starts his message. I hate it when this happens...


How did we come up with our list? We scoured the web and dug up every “best travel books” list we could find, from writers, bloggers and publications like Salon, Conde Nast Traveler, National Geographic Traveler and Transitions Abroad. (Naturally, we consulted our own top 30 list, too). Then we pulled out the books that were cited most often and added a few bestsellers.

You’ll find that a few books don’t fit the most rigid definition of travel memoir; we didn’t want our list to be too narrow or fussy. Rather, we wanted it to be broad and inclusive. Also, although we numbered the books from 1 to 100, we didn’t rank them; they appear here in alphabetical order. (You can find the 10 most celebrated books here.) The lists we drew from are noted below the book titles. The numbers in brackets after each book title on the list correspond to the source lists on which that title appears; a dollar sign in brackets indicates that a book was included based on extremely high sales. (Read the fine print for more detail on how we determined the 100 most celebrated travel books of all time.)

1) A Dragon Apparent, by Norman Lewis (5, 7)
2) A House in Bali, by Colin McPhee (4, 11)
3) A Moveable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway (4, 6)
4) A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby (1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15)
5) A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor (1, 2, 7, 8, 12)
6) A Turn in the South, by V.S. Naipaul (1)
7) A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson ($)
8) A Winter in Arabia, by Freya Stark (5)
9) Among the Russians, by Colin Thubron (3, 7)
10) An Area of Darkness, by V.S. Naipaul (2, 7, 8)
11) Arabian Sands, by Wilfred Thesiger (1, 2, 3, 4)
12) Arctic Dreams, by Barry Lopez (4, 11)
13) The Art of Travel, by Alain de Botton (5, 12)
14) As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning, by Laurie Lee (3, 5)
15) Baghdad Without a Map, by Tony Horwitz (1)
16) Balkan Ghosts, by Robert D. Kaplan (4, 6)
17) Beyond Euphrates, by Freya Stark (7)
18) The Bird Man and the Lap Dancer, by Eric Hansen (2)
19) Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, by Lawrence Durrell (2, 7)
20) Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West (2)
21) Black Like Me, by John Howard Griffin (13)
22) Blue Highways, by William Least Heat-Moon (2, 4, 8, 11, 12, 13)
23) Brazilian Adventure, by Peter Fleming (4, 5, 8)
24) Chasing the Sea, by Tom Bissell (2)
25) City of Djinns, by William Dalrymple (1, 4)
26) Coasting, by Jonathan Raban (3)
27) Coming Into the Country, by John McPhee (4, 9, 10, 11)
28) Dark Star Safari, by Paul Theroux (2, 11)
29) Desert Solitaire, by Edward Abbey (4, 11, 12)
30) Down the Nile, by Rosemary Mahoney (2)
31) Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert ($)
32) The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, by Tom Wolfe (13)
33) Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing (2, 11)
34) Facing the Congo, by Jeffrey Tayler (1)
35) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, by Hunter S. Thompson (2, 3, 6, 13)
36) Four Corners, by Kira Salak (6)
37) Full Circle, by Michael Palin (4, 11)
38) Full Tilt: Ireland to India With a Bicycle, by Dervla Murphy (5)
39) Golden Earth, by Norman Lewis (1)
40) Great Plains, by Ian Frazier (2, 11)
41) The Great Railway Bazaar, by Paul Theroux (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
42) Holidays in Hell, by P.J. O’Rourke (12)
43) Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell (3, 4)
44) Hunting Mister Heartbreak, by Jonathan Raban (1, 7)
45) In a Sunburned Country, by Bill Bryson (1, 2, 4, 11, 14)
46) In Patagonia, by Bruce Chatwin (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
47) In Siberia, by Colin Thubron (4, 12)
48) In Trouble Again, by Redmond O’Hanlon (2, 4)
49) The Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain (1, 2, 6)
50) Into the Wild, by Jon Krakauer (6, 11)
51) Into Thin Air, by Jon Krakauer ($)
52) Iron and Silk, by Mark Salzman (2, 4)
53) Kon-Tiki, by Thor Heyerdahl (15)
54) The Lady and the Monk, by Pico Iyer (12)
55) Life on the Mississippi, by Mark Twain (2, 13)
56) The Log From the Sea of Cortez, by John Steinbeck (11)
57) The Long Walk, by Slavomir Rawicz (2, 11)
58) The Lost Continent, by Bill Bryson (4, 8, 12, 13)
59) Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found, by Suketu Mehta (2, 6)
60) The Motorcycle Diaries, by Ernesto “Che” Guevara (14)
61) The Muses Are Heard, by Truman Capote (2)
62) No Mercy, by Redmond O’Hanlon (1, 2, 10, 12)
63) Notes From a Small Island, by Bill Bryson (3, 5)
64) Nothing to Declare, by Mary Morris (4, 8)
65) Old Glory, by Jonathan Raban (2, 4, 7)
66) The Old Patagonian Express, by Paul Theroux (4, 12)
67) Out of Africa, by Isak Dinesen (4, 7, 11)
68) Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, by Annie Dillard (9, 12)
69) The Pillars of Hercules, by Paul Theroux (2, 11)
70) The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart (2, 11, 15)
71) Riding to the Tigris, by Freya Stark (1)
72) The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald (2, 15)
73) The River at the Center of the World, by Simon Winchester (4)
74) River Town, by Peter Hessler (1)
75) Road Fever, by Tim Cahill (1, 4, 12)
76) The Road to Oxiana, by Robert Byron (1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7)
77) Roughing It, by Mark Twain (2, 4, 11, 13)
78) Sea and Sardinia, by D.H. Lawrence (2, 4)
79) Seven Years in Tibet, by Heinrich Harrer (4, 6, 11, 14)
80) The Sex Lives of Cannibals, by J. Maarten Troost (6, 12)
81) The Size of the World, by Jeff Greenwald (1, 6, 12)
82) Slowly Down the Ganges, by Eric Newby (2, 4)
83) The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen (1, 4, 9, 10, 11)
84) The Soccer War, by Ryszard Kapuscinski (1)
85) The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin (1, 2, 4, 12)
86) Terra Incognita, by Sara Wheeler (4, 11)
87) Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue, by Paul Bowles (2)
88) Three Cups of Tea, by Greg Mortenson (11)
89) Travels With Charley, by John Steinbeck (1, 3, 4, 6, 11, 12, 13)
90) Travels With Myself and Another, by Martha Gellhorn (2, 15)
91) Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere, by Jan Morris (1, 5)
92) Two Towns in Provence, by M.F.K. Fisher (2, 4, 7, 10)
93) Under the Tuscan Sun, by Frances Mayes (6)
94) Video Night in Kathmandu, by Pico Iyer (1, 4, 6, 10, 12)
95) West With the Night, by Beryl Markham (2, 4)
96) When the Going was Good, by Evelyn Waugh (1, 7)
97) The World of Venice, by Jan Morris (3)
98) The Worst Journey in the World, by Apsley Cherry-Garrard (2, 5, 11)
99) Wrong About Japan, by Peter Carey (2)
100) Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig (10, 13)

MORE: The 100 Most Celebrated Travel Books of All Time: By the Numbers | The Fine Print | Mapped | Five Great Covers

Source Lists
1) World Hum’s Top 30 Travel Books
2) Conde Nast Traveler’s 86 Greatest Travel Books of All Time
3) The Telegraph’s 20 Best Travel Books of All Time
4) National Geographic Traveler’s Ultimate Travel Library
5) The Times Online’s 20 Best Travel Books of the Past Century
6) Brave New Traveler’s 50 Greatest Travel Books of All Time
7) From Salon, Tom Swick’s Top 20 Travel Books of the 20th Century
8) The International Society of Travel Writers’ Top 10 Best Travel Books of the 20th Century
9) From Salon, Don George’s Favorite Travel Books
10) Salon’s Top 10 Travel Books of the 20th Century
11) NileGuide’s Top 50 Adventure Books of All Time
12) From Transitions Abroad, Top 10 Travel Books lists from a variety of travel writers: Jim Benning, Michael Shapiro, Rolf Potts, Ron Mader, Rory MacLean, Tim Leffel and Ayun Halliday.
13) Smithsonian’s Great Road Trips in American Literature
14) Nomadic Matt’s Best Travel Books
15) The Travel Bookshop’s Top 10 Travel Books

Chuck Thompson on the Hellholes of the World

Freelance travel writer Chuck Thompson first came to the attention of the public with his book about the realities of travel writing, Smile While You're Lying. I enjoyed and sympathized with his message that it's almost impossible to make a sensible living as a guidebook writer if you're expected to absolutely visit all the assigned destinations. His other advice is that travel should be full of adventure and risks, which I also support. So I gave his first book a big thumbs up, despite the howls of indignation from the travel writing community. Oh well.

And now Chuck has gone and done it again with his second book entitled To Hellholes and Back: Bribes, Lies, and the Art of Extreme Tourism. You can order it today at Amazon.

The National Geographic Blog offers up a fine interview with Chuck which sheds light on why he wrote the book, his opinion on so-called "dangerous" destinations, and the importance of getting off the road to find new experiences. He also points out that his former themes of being a travel writer are now less important and he's moving on to new subjects. He's a man to watch.

Christopher Elliott conducted the interview, which was also posted on Chris' blog a few days earlier.

What's the common thread between your designated 'hellholes'?

On the most basic level, they're all places that have earned extremely negative reputations with people who have never been there. Taken together, they represent the whole spread of traveler paranoia -- from crime, disease and bloodshed to standing in long lines in the Florida sun next to little Caitlins and Coopers waiting to get on the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith. India's death-or-glory salesmen and promise of GI infections intimidated me personally, but as a global outsourcing hub and magnet for terrorists, it neatly packages the worst economic, cultural and political fears of modern America. So, a book covering these places seemed like it would have both personal meaning and universal relevance.

What's the point you were trying to make by visiting these places?

I didn't start off with any point in mind other than to confront some of my own biases and see what happened. I try to approach everything I write about with as agnostic a mindset as possible, which, sadly, is not much the fashion these days.

The predictable and perhaps natural way to go into a project like this is to assume that you'll come out at the other end with a cheery, hands-across-the-sea message of global brotherhood and a stern lesson about judging others from afar. But I went to these places willing to call a spade a spade. If my experience supported it, I was fully ready to say, "You know what? I was right. This place really does suck. This society is completely screwed up."

What I finished with was something in-between. The Congo and its ubiquitous AK-47s I never need to experience again. But I gained more respect for Miley Cyrus than I would have thought possible.

Of all these destinations, which one scared you the most?

Easily the Congo. For one, just the genuine threat of violence. I mean, there's a civil war going on there.

But more than that, the complete lack of information was alarming. It turns out virtually nobody goes to the Congo. Consequently, it's almost impossible to get an accurate idea about what's going on there, how to get around, and so on. Even the major guidebooks devoted to Africa include only a few perfunctory pages about the country. And all the Africans I spoke to said, "Do not go to Congo under any circumstance!"

For a while I thought I'd have to abort the trip. Then I found Henri, who got me through the country, but turned out to be an adventure in and of himself.

It seems as if you're saying as much about tourists -- specifically American tourists -- as you are about the destinations you visit. What are you trying to say?

My general point about American tourists is that by and large I think they're pretty polite and open-minded and no worse than any other travelers and not at all deserving of that old "ugly American" tag.

The larger thing I discovered while traveling for this book is that while everyone seems to love bitching about the Americanization of the world -- from McDonald's to Disney to gluttonous consumerism -- the reverse seems to be much more the case these days. The world is influencing America far more than America is influencing the world. And often not in a good way.

Political corruption essentially taken for granted. Religious intolerance. Municipal bankruptcy. Enfeebled currency. Military adventurism. Toothless media. In one section I used the dismal ascendancy of soccer in this country as a symbol for all of this social decay -- which I know will get a lot of people thinking I'm an ass in the same way that I angered Eric Clapton fans by dumping on him in Smile When You're Lying, but to me it's an apt and sort of funny metaphor.

You seem to have laid off criticizing travel writing in this book, for the most part. Do you feel as if you made your point in your last book, or do you still have something to say about travel writing? If so, what is it?

Christopher Moore and Chris Coles in Pattaya

"Navigating the Bangkok Noir"

Liam's Gallery in Pattaya/Jomtien Beach presents the Bangkok Noir paintings of Chris Coles and the Bangkok Noir novels of Christopher G. Moore, two of the founding members of the Bangkok Noir Movement.

Both Chris Coles and Christopher G. Moore will be on hand for the Opening Night Friday, December 11th, starting at 6:30PM, and both will be signing the two latest Christopher G. Moore books, THE CORRUPTIONIST and THE VINCENT CALVINO READER'S GUIDE, which feature Chris Coles's paintings on their covers.

Liam's Gallery
Soi 4 Pratamnak Road
Pattaya, Thailand

God Bless Green Apple and San Francisco

Sales of Sarah Palin's book are almost nil here in San Francisco, but local bookstore Green Apple has gone one better.

With all due to respect to the Republicans who were as overjoyed as I was (for different reasons, of course) by Sarah Palin's nomination to the McCain ticket last year, Green Apple is donating 100% of the profits from sales of Sarah Palin's Going Rogue: An American Life to the Alaska Wildlife Alliance.

For a respectful and professional review of the book, instead of our touchy-feely knee-jerk urban liberalism, see Michiko Kakutani's review in the New York Times.

Chris Moore Novel with Chris Coles Artwork

It's a match made in heaven. The famed Bangkok writer Chris Moore will feature the artwork of Chris Coles on his next book. What could be better? The leading noir author in Thailand teams up with the leading noir artist. Perfeckt, nicht whar?

See Chris Moore Blog for more info on the books.

THE VINCENT CALVINO READER’S GUIDE

Toward the end of 2009 Heaven Lake Press will release a little book titled: The Vincent Calvino Reader’s Guide. It will contain all of the Calvino laws from the 11 books in the series, along with a couple of prefaces, essays, and interview about the Calvino series and a summary of all the books.

It will be about the same size as a Lonely Planet Thai language pocket book. Something that fits into the palm of your hand though you won’t be able to make phone calls or Google on it.

Below is the from cover art is from one of Chris Coles’s noir paintings. This one is titled One Night in Bankgkok.

The Year of No Money in Tokyo

Nikko Shogun Festival by Carl Parkes

The author sent me a copy for review, but I haven't had the time and there's an excellent recent review in The Japan Times. The Japan Times article is here.

Amazon link to order.

By STEPHEN MANSFIELD
THE YEAR OF NO MONEY IN TOKYO by Wayne Lionel Aponte. Watkins & McKay, 165 pp., 2009, $19.95 (cloth)

It is 1995, that defining year of the Kobe earthquake, the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, the year a man in Osaka confesses to dismembering the bodies of three women at his home in Osaka; the year a Buddhist priest is arrested for raping over 100 women. The times are out of joint, and the author finds his own personal hell in a painful financial nadir.

The author's fall from grace, from a regular job, expensive apartment and lifestyle to go with it, initiates him into the unsettling world of the Tokyo guesthouse, or gaijin houses as they are known. Cohabitation of a tiny room with a mostly absent Irish hostess, more or less works out for the now unemployed writer; sharing a six-mat room with a space-hungry, drug-taking Japanese female "artist," does not. When Aponte finally moves out to his own three-mat room, his newfound privacy is intoxicating.

Touching bottom implies a prelude to renewal, but in Aponte's case there are several low points in his year of no money. One is having his application for a dishwashing job at a Japanese restaurant rejected on the grounds that they only hire foreigners married to natives. That, Aponte notes, is "when the walls started caving in. That's when this room began resembling death."

In tracking his route of reverse mobility — luxury digs to gaijin house — the tone becomes rueful: "I squandered energy, money, and my mid-twenties on perfumed Japanese fantasies." Aponte is frank about both his old and newly impoverished self. Switching women as often as addresses, and with an equal lack of remorse, he notes, "During my first months of poverty, I moved in with a woman in an effort to cut my cash-burn rate." Simultaneous dating becomes an existential necessity, the writer compelled to accept that "The choice between homelessness and using people for access to their homes and food is a matter of survival." In addition to the free rooms and cash handouts, he provides company, sexual companionship, and a sympathetic ear to women who are battling their own demons. His plight reminds us that, before we condemn we should realize how easily circumstances make us behave out of character. As he puts it, "missed-meal cramps relieved me of any contrition."

The more depleted his funds, the more menacing the city appears. Along with Rey Ventura's "Underground in Japan," this may be the best firsthand account of grubbing out an existence in Japan's hostile labor market. As a black American in Tokyo, he is appalled at the crude forms racism takes: the offensive caricatures on domestic television, the comedy skits that are little more than "tutorials in discrimination."

To his credit, Aponte converts misfortune into the hard currency of ideas. When frustration boils over into an assault on a former colleague, the action lands him in jail for several nights. Observing the grinning guards watching him eat, he turns humiliation into an opportunity to nurture more profound doubts about the way the Japanese regard black people. Thrown back on his own resources, he seizes upon detention as "the ultimate phase in a long process of inner purification."

As penury deepens, Aponte becomes an authority, a voice worth listening to on the financial, emotional and psychological effects of prolonged unemployment. His timely book reminds us how suddenly a dish of sumptuous food can turn into a mendicant's bowl. Aponte's resurrection comes with a steady job and the respect that a teaching post confers. If living lean turns you mean, job security mellows the writer and promotes a more positive view of Japan. The final pages, where he reviews what his year of no money has taught him, are less compelling, reading a little like a self-help list of ways to rebuild the mind and soul.

Though we wish him well in his new quest to save money and "seek a relationship with God," it is the more flawed, craven character that dominates his year of no money and makes the deepest engraving.

The Japan Times: Sunday, Aug. 23, 2009
(C) All rights

Mystery Writers of America will support Writer Beware

Writer Beware is an amazing organization and blog that helps inform writers about scams in the writing industry. Their service is invaluable, ongoing, and determined to expose the underbelly of the writing industry here in the U.S. and around the world.

Writer Beware has long been supported by the Science Fiction Writers of America, and they are more than happy to pick up additional support from the Mystery Writers of America. Way to go, many happy days to you guys!

More good news for Writer Beware: the Mystery Writers of America is joining SFWA in sponsoring us.

From the official press release:

“We are pleased to be able to support the important work that Writer Beware is doing on behalf of all writers, professional and aspiring, by exposing scams aimed at defrauding authors,” said Frankie Bailey, executive vice president of the Mystery Writers of America, which is giving SFWA a financial grant of $1000 and providing other resources, such as inviting Writer Beware representatives to share their booth at BookExpo and supplying volunteers to speak at writing conferences about fraudulent publishing practices.

Needless to say, we're thrilled to add MWA's support to the incredible support and backing we've had from SFWA these past 10 years. We had a great time this year at the MWA booth at BEA, and hope to be back next year. We look forward to this wonderful new partnership--and hope that other professional writers' organizations will consider joining it as well.

Our MWA liaison, Lee Goldberg, gives the partnership a shout-out on his blog, and the news has also been picked up by PW.

The Falling Man in Esquire

Falling Man in Esquire is only one of the seven full stories (The Seven Greatest Stories in the History of Esquire) recently published online by the magazine. You can find the others by going to the link above.

In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable in the grip of unimaginable motion. He does not appear intimidated by gravity's divine suction or by what awaits him. His arms are by his side, only slightly outriggered. His left leg is bent at the knee, almost casually. His white shirt, or jacket, or frock, is billowing free of his black pants. His black high-tops are still on his feet. In all the other pictures, the people who did what he did -- who jumped -- appear to be struggling against horrific discrepancies of scale. They are made puny by the backdrop of the towers, which loom like colossi, and then by the event itself. Some of them are shirtless; their shoes fly off as they flail and fall; they look confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain. The man in the picture, by contrast, is perfectly vertical, and so is in accord with the lines of the buildings behind him. He splits them, bisects them: Everything to the left of him in the picture is the North Tower; everything to the right, the South. Though oblivious to the geometric balance he has achieved, he is the essential element in the creation of a new flag, a banner composed entirely of steel bars shining in the sun. Some people who look at the picture see stoicism, willpower, a portrait of resignation; others see something else -- something discordant and therefore terrible: freedom. There is something almost rebellious in the man's posture, as though once faced with the inevitability of death, he decided to get on with it; as though he were a missile, a spear, bent on attaining his own end. He is, fifteen seconds past 9:41 a.m. EST, the moment the picture is taken, in the clutches of pure physics, accelerating at a rate of thirty-two feet per second squared. He will soon be traveling at upwards of 150 miles per hour, and he is upside down. In the picture, he is frozen; in his life outside the frame, he drops and keeps dropping until he disappears.

Lonely Planet Bleeds Red

I can't tell if the BBC has divided the Lonely Planet financial reports between their print and web publications, but at least one division continues to report modest losses, which are expected to continue into 2010. Travolution reports.

BBC Worldwide has stressed Lonely Planet’s web strategy is still a “hugely important” part of its long term future after figures revealed the guide giant has racked up losses of nearly £10 million in eighteen months.

The scale of Lonely Planet’s overall losses was disclosed in the BBC’s Anual Report 2008/9 released this week and comes after a number of redundancies earlier this year in its digital and content divisions.

The state-owned broadcaster’s commercial arm paid £89.9 million for a 75% stake in Lonely Planet in October 2007.

In the eighteen months since then, Lonely Planet has lost £9.6 million on sales of £43 million.

A BBC Worldwide spokesperson told Travolution that the website was “a hugely important part” of the five-year plan for Lonely Planet.

“We bought the brand because it had a significant market share of the travel content business without having exploited its online presence.”

Lonelyplanet.com was relaunched in Novermber 2008, and the numbers appear quite strong. Omniture stats referred to in the Annual Report say that the site is getting 5.5m visitors a month, an increase of nearly 20% year-on-year.

The brand’s investment in the mobile space will continue, with this driving its global aspirations – 270,000 people for example have downloaded its Mandarin phrasebook application for the iPhone.

The brand has also launched a magazine during the year, with content from the print title ending up on the website as well. The site also features travel content from the BBC archives, with “more and more BBC travel content becoming available.”

The traditional guide book side of the band has also “suffered considerably” as part of an overall decline in that sector.

Reports elsewhere suggest that the travel guide book market fell 18.1% in the UK, US and Australia during the year. Lonely Planet however claims that it still the market leader in the UK and Australia and has picked up market share in America.

The E-Book is Coming (but not quite yet)

As a former travel guidebook author, I somewhat follow the evolution of the Kindle and the future of e-books, which I assume will one day replace the paper versions. Kindles still suck, but they will improve over time. But can you imagine the advantage to carrying a small electronic device loaded with the latest information on guesthouses in Sukothai along with a detailed and completely up to date map? The mind boggles. Printed guidebooks are on their way out, but I'd give them another five or eight years before they are replaced. Slate reports on the shitty conditions of current Kindles and why e-books should stay priced at $9.99 until this industry is established. Otherwise, hello Napster for illegally downloaded e-books.

What has kept illegal e-books from taking off? First, all the electronic reading gadgets on the market are subpar, if you ask me, making the reading of books, newspapers, magazines, and even cereal boxes painful. The resolution is poor. The fonts are crap. The navigation is chunky. Not since the eight-track player has modern technology produced such a heap of garbage. If you're looking for the reason e-books constitute just 1 percent or 2 percent of all book sales, stop the search. Second, the hassle factor is too great. Only a student or a deadbeat with a lot of time on his hands is going to want to search the Web and scour the torrents for, say, a free, bootlegged copy of A.J. Liebling's The Telephone Booth Indian. It's as tedious as fishing! Third, not all bootlegged e-books are created equal. On finally finding that free book you so desire, you may find yourself wishing you had purchased the legal edition: Your bootleg may be filled with typographical errors, thanks to the slipshod application of optical character-recognition software. If a nicely produced Kindle version of The Telephone Booth Indian that doesn't have to be monkeyed around with can be easily nabbed for $9.99, which it can, why bother breaking the law to obtain an inferior edition for display on a rotten device? It's like using an acetylene torch to loot a kid's piggy bank.

Right now, the electronic-book market finds itself roughly in the same place the market for MP3s was in 1999, the year after the release of the first portable MP3 player. First adopters of e-books, who are filling their devices with content and proselytizing to their friends, have it better than the early MP3 users. The iTunes store, which was established in early 2003, was among the first online sites where music fans could easily buy music files, a la carte, from a huge selection. The other commercial sites, wrote the New York Times, were "complex, expensive and limiting" and "failing because they were created to serve the interests of the record companies, not their customers." Basically, before iTunes arrived, if you wanted portable tracks, you had to rip your own, borrow collections from friends, or grab "free" tunes from the "pirates" at Napster or other file-sharing sites.